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AT&T says its prepared to drop its opposition to government rules for net neutrality. In return it wants to be allowed to take over DirecTV without regulatory interference. The offer could be a dramatic development in the ongoing dispute over ... net neutrality. That's the principle that Internet carriers should not discriminate between different types of content (other than illegal material). Examples include: blocking, slowing down, or charging special carriage fees for some forms of data, but not others. The US government, in particular the Federal Communications Commission, has ... (view more)

The company that operates website addresses ending in ".sucks" has been accused of trying to exploit people worried about sites set up to attack them. However, nobody seems quite sure if it breaks any rules or who, if anyone, has the authority to do ... something about it. The controversy involves a major change to the way website registration works that took effect in 2012. Until then, all website addresses ended in one of a limited number of "top level domains" such as .com, .org, or country-specific domains such as .ca for Canada. Anyone Can Become an Administrator of a Top ... (view more)

Facebook has clarified its rules on what can and cannot be posted on the site. The changes are designed to bring more common sense, but critics say the rules still have inconsistencies. The decision to remove posts, photos or videos is based on a ... set of rules known as Facebook's community guidelines. In the past, the guidelines have come under heavy criticism for being either too vague and broad, often seeming to outlaw content many people would consider acceptable, or allow content widely considered unacceptable. Three years ago, leaked documents showed the instructions for previous ... (view more)

A Supreme Court judge says its time to re-examine laws that make it difficult or impossible to impose sales tax on many online sales. The decision could mean some states start collecting the tax without waiting for the law to change. Justice Anthony ... Kennedy made the comments in a Supreme Court ruling on a case involving the way Colorado attempts to collect sales taxes from companies based outside the state that sell goods to Colorado residents. At issue is Colorado's policy that any firm which does not collect and pay such taxes must provide extensive paperwork anyway. The ruling itself ... (view more)

Twitter says it will remove some images of deceased people upon request from members of family. But the new policy has limitations and may not cover two high-profile situations that brought attention to the issue. Following the death of Robin ... Williams last week, his daughter Zelda announced she would no longer use Twitter. She claims to have been abused by " Internet trolls " that produced digitally altered images of her father, and then posted them on Twitter, along with her name tagged in the post. It's believed the images depicted her father's death based on media reports ... (view more)

A web developer has started a site which displays Google censored links, enforced by the " right to be forgotten " rules in Europe. It's another example of how such censorship rules aren't working as well as planned. The new rules came into force ... earlier this year after the European Court of Justice made a final ruling in a long-running case involving Google and a Spanish man . The man wanted Google to remove a link to a news article from the 1990s about his property being repossessed. The man said it was unfair that people who searched for his name online would see that ... (view more)

Facebook is introducing new rules governing the way its users can offer to sell guns online its website. While it's not banning such posts altogether, Facebook is taking steps to ensure its users are complying with the law. According to Facebook ... policy chief Monika Bickert, the subject of gun sales means the site faces "a difficult challenge balancing individuals' desire to express themselves on our services, and recognizing that this speech may have consequences elsewhere." (Source: fb.com ) Facebook already has several policies on the sale of goods, which don't always ... (view more)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has revised its rules about online advertising to better account for new trends in social media. The FTC warns that the short format of ads on Facebook and Twitter is no excuse for misleading customers. The warning ... comes in a document called ".Com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising." It's an update to an original set of guidelines called "Dot Com Disclosures," which was published in 2000. This is the first time the rules have been updated, even though the Internet has changed dramatically since that time. The key to the ... (view more)

An estimated 40,000 businesses and organizations could find themselves legally bound to report any cyber security breaches they've suffered. The idea is to share information about cyber threats and increase the chances of catching hackers. The rules ... have been proposed by the European Union and would affect organizations across that continent. Companies from the United States and other countries that operate in Europe might also be covered by the rules. (Source: europa.eu ) The firms involved include banks, power companies, and medical facilities. The European Union has determined that a ... (view more)

A federal court has ruled that major cellphone carriers must let their smaller rivals use their data networks. This could mean more competitive deals and better coverage for smartphone and tablet owners, as well as those accessing mobile broadband ... on a laptop. The United States Court of Appeals has rejected a challenge by Verizon, thereby upholding an earlier ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The original ruling primarily covered data roaming, the technique by which customers of one cellphone carrier access the data services of another carrier. The FCC had said that ... (view more)